


implanta/.

by Elisye



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing, Umineko no Naku Koro ni | When the Seagulls Cry
Genre: Gen, hella tons of spoilers for ndrv3 eyyyyyy, people with the hymmnos font installed will get One Fun Bonus but not really lmao, the selfishly indulgent umineko-touched fic no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 18:09:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11385588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisye/pseuds/Elisye
Summary: For the two without love, the sea of fragments is endless.





	implanta/.

 

Take these rosaries into your hand, and have hope—

Tomorrow shall always come.

Even if it must dawn over your corpse.

(the end? ahaha, no, no, no, no no no no no - my dear, it's only the beginning.)

 

 

 

 

A chessboard colored like snow—

Strings pulled, smiles pulled, whispers and whispers and whispers.

What comes after they depart, after they separate, after they wander in such innocent musings—

You thumb the corner of the script, hum quietly, and wonder what would happen if you tweaked things here and there. Alter a few key things. Alter a few pointless things. Supposing, you say, you put this little pawn over here and his path to checkmate over there...

Ah, but in his eyes, was it actually something like that, at this very point of the story?

You glance down at your open palms. You don't know. The chessboard flickers, the snow slows and gradually comes to a complete halt. The script of your gameboard continues to revolve in the air, strings shining with ever-alluring silence. You're not sure of what your king, on his horse, must have thought here.

What a difficult thing to encounter! Playing a game while understanding so little of the pieces is a far too naive, vain thing to do.

Another thoughtful hum.

—Ah, well, you're in control of the script all the same, so it doesn't really matter now!

 

 

 

 

Once upon a time, you came into existence.

The dawn of another day must be reclaimed, you thought.

So you have to do it all over again. Salvage the board, the pawns and rooks and bishops - weave the game as it was, and ultimately as it should have been.

(the original ending will always be a miserable thing, even if your denial eventually appeared to smolder without the embers. the truth, the pure silver truth, is that you had lost and lost so horribly and lost _everything_ you held in those insignificantly infinite moments. how dare they how dare they how dare they _go off script—_ )

 

 

 

 

A hundred years of life, a thousand near-identical boards, and around ten thousand changes to the scenario nonetheless.

Even though human beings are each imbued with a shard of the endless, you still find a satisfying array of predictable formulas. Quite some time ago, a variant of this gameboard created you - but now, now! Now, it is you who keeps creating this one specific story.

Copies upon copies upon copies. Between the losers and the winners, clearly, you will always be the winner.

You laugh to the tea room's emptiness, and idly glide your fingers over the edges of your current chessboard. Just like #299 and #422 and #522 and # 612 and #743 and #907, the killing game proceeds with a set number of names and a set number of survivors, a designated musical leader and a designated supreme ringleader. These are the boards furthest from #0, the boards you delighted in because they were such beautiful copies that no one would dare describe as such. At least, not to your face.

You think and you think and you relish in these plain facts - until a Cheshire's smile stretches across on the other side of the table, and for a rare instance, you're not alone anymore.

" _Well._ " A witch, without a single shred of manners, leans his elbow heavily onto the table. "What do we have here?"

He looks down at your gameboard. The smile drops faster than his death did. "Huh. Guess you deserve your title as the Witch of Replication after all."

"I never invited you here."

"Ehhhhh, really now? Really now? But that's so odd isn't it, since I'm here anyway!" Inhale, exhale. You pull your strings together, and frown disapprovingly as he keeps going on - "Maybe you just forgot? Or maybe you're just making up strange excuses—witches in Purgatory are always some of the weirdest of the bunch, you know?"

"I never asked—" Breathe.  Continue, regardless of his tactlessness. "For someone like you to be here, disturbing - everything. Everything that's mine."

"But - we never belonged to you, Shirogane." 

Ouma sneers. The original script floats, however faintly, around him. Not something he can see, it's a sight exclusive to your type - but, the fact still stands. His mockery still stands. He knows just as well as you that his death, despite everything, derailed the story far too much to be helped.

Your nails form prickling red marks on your skin. You just barely refrain from scowling at the unwanted reminders. " _Out._ "

"Aww, after I came all this way?" His features soften just a bit, transformed into something like - excitement. "Won't we at least part with a game between us?"

"Me, against you? The Witch of Lies?" You've heard the rumors. You're not interested, you are not intrigued— "If I win, you'll regret dying the way you did."

He tilts his head with a lazier smile. "As if I don't."

 

 

 

 

Take these rosaries into your hand, and hold onto hope—

Tomorrow shall always come.

And with it, the corpses you finally have to turn around and meet.

(#1001 ends like #0 - a futile failure.)

 

 

 

 

 

"Hey, Shirogane."

"Yes?"

Mischief glimmers in his eyes. "Do you like songs?"

"Ahh." You think back on your pregame days. "Well, I did like that participant I made into a Vocaloid Producer, as well as the Ultimate Seasons which had an Opera Singer and a Koto Player—"

Ouma gives you a blank look. There's a faint furrow to his eyebrows, nonetheless - but you ignore him and just keep rambling as you like. Repeated mentions of the killing game and anything related is one of the few ways you can genuinely get under his skin.

Eventually, he sighs at your see-through act - a cultivated ability, something his original _clearly_ didn't have - gesturing into the air with a hand and calling up a fragment from the sea. The facets on its surface reflect to show ancient voices and stars computed into binary and seven dimensions. A world built on song and choices, ensnared all the same by too many hearts and their countless faults. Without thinking, you take up the little fragment into your hands and look at it from all sides.

"...Ohh, this is from a really obscure franchise!" You blink a bit. "There was a lot of story content for it, but it was mostly in side material and albums - though regardless, it was mostly known for its excessive fanservice. How nostalgic..."

Your companion's face only gets flatter and flatter. Withering, really.

Finally, you set the fragment down on your lap. "Hmm, going here would really be something... But, well, that's up to you ultimately."

"How rude," he huffs. "Deciding things just because I'm the voyager witch between us. It's tiring, you know? Dragging people around."

The fragment in your lap begins to slowly sway to unseen waves, rising over your knees. It floats into the air before gently descending back into the sea of fragments, disappearing, returning to being another shard of the fathomless blue. It is a quiet, passing occurrence, much like the emptiness of an unnamed, undefined afterlife, much like now.

You hum your words pleasantly into the quietness, as if composing a grocery list. "Then maybe you should have erased my existence when you played against me."

"We don't kill." Not a single beat is skipped. It's your turn to sigh a little.

"...Ah yes, of course. How could I have forgotten that."

He rolls his eyes at your sarcasm, before hopping off the makeshift array of pillows and floating nebulae - drifting off and off towards the glimmers along the ocean waves. Whether to watch or to actually disappear into for a time, you still can't discern, so you eventually have to abandon this soft sofa and hurry after him.

(the sea is far too wide to become alone again.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> 「:/xU rre vega a.u.k. zz ayulsa siance/.  
> xU rre vega a.u.k. zodal sechel/:」  
> "This place is no more than a dead city.  
> It was never a paradise of hope or anything similar..."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [what from my seclusion does this charlatan demand?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15962876) by [wingless](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingless/pseuds/wingless)




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